Kicking off Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s 2014/15 Season in the Stackner Cabaret is the side-splitting and rollicking production The Doyle & Debbie Show, a perfect blend of comedy and country music

August 7, 2014 – [Milwaukee] – Kicking off Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s 2014/15 Season in the Stackner Cabaret is the side-splitting and rollicking production The Doyle & Debbie Show, a perfect blend of comedy and country music. Called “90 minutes of goofy perfection” by the Chicago Sun-Times, TheDoyle & Debbie Show features a washed-up country star and his newest singing partner dusting off their microphones and resurrecting a familiar signature sound. Singing 16 original hits, including “Stock Car Love” and “Blue Stretch Pants,” this hilarious send-up of country music duos will have audiences doubled-over with laughter and roaring for an encore. The show is parody at its best – simultaneously lampooning country music at the same time idolizing its tradition of iconic duos and the battle of the sexes.

The Doyle & Debbie Show is writtenby Bruce Arntson and will be directed by Rep Artistic Associate JC Clementz, who directed Forever Plaid last season at The Rep. The cast features Michael Accardo, Erin Parker and Bo Johnson, all making their Rep debuts.The Doyle & Debbie Show runs in the Stackner Cabaret from September 5 – November 2and opens Sunday, September 7. The Stackner Cabaret season is sponsored by Sally Manegold.

Fans of country music have enjoyed the show as well as those who prefer to make a little fun of it. Either way, the twanging guitars and ridiculous lyrics create a perfect concoction – think Kenny Rogers meets Mel Brooks meets The Blue Collar Comedy Tour. The show equally pokes fun at love, NASCAR, adultery, sexuality, pregnancy and what it means to be a family.

“I saw this show down in Chicago and I couldn’t agree more with Chicago Tribune theater critic Chris Jones who called this show ‘hilarious, brilliant and drop-dead funny.’ This is definitely one of the funniest pieces I’ve seen in a long time!” says Artistic Director Mark Clements. “The Doyle and Debbie Showhas a wickedly funny script, wonderful original music and is a loving spoof on country western music duos.”

Director JC Clementz added, “I haven’t read a script that made me laugh so hard in a very long time. The lyrics are smart and funny, and the music is just great. You do not have to be a country music fan to enjoy this uproarious and sometimes irreverent homage to the genre.”

The Doyle and Debbie Show opened in Nashville at the Wheel Station Inn in 2005 and since has performed at Chicago’s Royal George Theatre as well as Minneapolis’s New Century Theatre. It is currently running again in Nashville.

Milwaukee Rep offers the following Access Services for The Doyle & Debbie Show:

Audio-Description Performance, Sunday, September 14, 7pm – the show will beAudio-Described for patrons who are blind or have low vision.

TICKETS

Tickets for The Doyle & Debbie Show begin at $40.00. Single Tickets for all of Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s 2014/15 productions are now on sale and can be purchased by going online 24/7 at www.MilwaukeeRep.com, through The Rep’s Ticket Office by calling 414-224-9490 or in person at 108 E. Wells Street. Group tickets are also available for purchase by calling Group Sales Manager Joy Surber at 414-290-5340.

Michael Accardo, (Actor) is thrilled to be making his Milwaukee Rep debut in The Doyle and Debbie Show. Credits include: Les Misérables as Thenardier (Marriott Lincolnshire and Arkansas Repertory Theatre); Urinetown as Cladwell (Mercury Theatre Chicago);The Full Monty as Harold; (Drury Lane Water Tower Place); Something’s Afoot as Blore (Drury Lane Oakbrook); and Annie Get Your Gun as Pawnee Bill with Patti Lupone and George Hearn (Ravinia Festival). Accardo also does voiceover work, commercials, film, and television. He is a proud Actors’ Equity member of 32 years.

Erin Parker, (Actor) is a Southern Illinois native, University of Evansville graduate and one-time Resident Company Member at Barter Theatre in Virginia. Parker is now based in Nashville, TN where she is a founding member of MAS Nashville (www.masnashville.com). Favorite credits include: Diana in Next to Normal, Emilia in Othello, Madame Thenardier in Les Misérables, Doralee in 9 to 5, Svetlana in Chess in Concert, Cathy in The Last 5 Years, and Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors. Parker has toured with Martina McBride’s Joy of Christmas and the first national tour of Ring of Fire. She was the recipient of the Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artists Fellowship Grant in Theatre.

Bo Johnson, (Actor) will be making his first appearance as an actor for Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Milwaukee theater audiences will be familiar with him through his work as an actor and technician for Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Next Act Theatre, Skylight Theatre, ComedySportz, First Stage Children’s Theater, The Dead Alewives, Theatre X, Theatre Gigante, Milwaukee Public Theatre, In Tandem Theatre, Alchemist Theatre, American Folklore Theatre, and many others. He recently co-founded a new company, Umbrella Group Milwaukee, which will present its production of Who Killed Santa this December.

JC Clementz, (Director/Casting Director) is the Artistic Associate: Casting Director & Artistic Internship Program Director entering his fourth season with Milwaukee Repertory Theater where he has worked in the Artistic Office and as a Directing Intern. At Milwaukee Rep, he directed last season’s Forever Plaid and has directed several short plays over three seasons of Rep Lab. He also assistant directed Othello, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Christmas Carol, and Yellowman. JC directed Waiting…A Song Cycle for The World’s Stage Theater Company in Milwaukee, which also ran at the Cherry Lane Theater in New York. As a stage manager, JC has traveled throughout Europe as the Assistant Stage Manager for New York Harlem Productions’ international tour of Porgy and Bess (director Baayork Lee), and spent four summers working at Perry-Mansfield in the mountains of Colorado. He holds an MFA in Directing from Western Illinois University.

Jeff Schaetzke, (Music Director) is a lifelong Milwaukeean and is making his Milwaukee Rep debut. Schaetzke is the Company Manager at First Stage, and directs, teaches, and directs music there as well. He has directed music for Skylight’s In the Heights, Dames At Sea and An Evening with Gilbert and Sullivan, and appeared in My Fair Lady. Other credits: Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s The Daly News, two seasons at American Players Theatre, past university experiences at Marquette, UWM, and Carroll College. Theatre Director, Dominican High School (18 years): Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Les Misérables, Ragtime, Hairspray, Metamorphoses, Myths and Hymns, Pirates of Penzance, Children of Eden, and many others. He is a graduate of North Central College, and proud husband to Sheila, and father to Amelia, Jeremy, and Adelaide.

Joe C. Klug, (Scenic Designer) is delighted to be working with Milwaukee Rep on this production. His most recent design credits include: Our Class (Remy Bumppo Theatre, Chicago); Happy Days (Mead Theatre Lab, D.C.); Macbeth and This is Our Youth, (Hangar Theatre, NY); and What the Butler Saw (Bristol Valley Theatre, NY).

Mary Folino, (Costume Coordinator) is the Costume Director at The Rep, originally from Philadelphia where she spent the last 13 years as the Assistant Costume Shop Manager for the Walnut Street Theatre. Last season at The Rep she designed costumes for the Stackner Cabaret production Ain’t Misbehavin’ and she will be designing again for the upcoming production of Five Presidents, and numerous productions in the Philadelphia area. Favorite designs include Hair (Prince Music Theater); The Mousetrap (Walnut Street Theatre); Around the World in 80 Days (Walnut Street Theatre); and Romeo and Juliet (Lantern Theater Company).

Aimee Hanyzewski, (Lighting Designer) has designed in the Stackner Cabaret for such hits as last season’s Ain’t Misbehavin’, From My Hometown, Fire on the Bayou, Grafton City Blues, and in the Stiemke Theater for The Year of Magical Thinking. She also has worked on The Rep’s A Christmas Carol for six seasons as the Associate Lighting Designer. Currently, Aimee is a freelance lighting designer in the Madison and Chicago area.

Erin Paige, (Sound Coordinator) is The Rep’s Interim Sound Director. Credits include sound designing last season’s production of I Left My Heart: A Salute to the Music of Tony Bennett. Paigecomes to Milwaukee from five seasons of engineering at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Favorite shows there include Hamlet, She Loves Me and Death and the King’s Horseman. Her most recent design credits include King Lear at The Alchemist Theatre in Bay View and Phaedra’s Love for The World’s Stage Theatre Company. She holds a BFA in Sound Design from Southern Oregon University.

Ashlee Wasmund, (Stage Movement Director) is thrilled to return to The Rep after working on last season’s I Left My Heart: A Salute to the Music of Tony Bennett. She holds an MFA in Acting from Western Illinois University and is now an actor and choreographer in Chicago, working with theaters such as Drury Lane, Provision, Promethean Theatre Ensemble, Stage Left, and First Folio. She is a proud member of the artistic ensemble of Midsommer Flight theater in Chicago, which seeks to bring free Shakespeare performance to underserved communities. Additionally, Wasmund serves on the theater faculty at the Chicago Academy for the Arts and musical theatre faculty at Carthage College in Kenosha, WI.

Jill Walmsley Zager, (Dialect Coach) returns to The Rep this season. Milwaukee Rep credits include: The History of Invulnerability, The Whipping Man, End of the Rainbow, Noises Off, Ragtime, A Raisin In the Sun, Clybourne Park, Sense and Sensibility, A Christmas Carol, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Mountaintop, Assassins, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lombardi, Yellowman, Ten Chimneys, The 39 Steps, My Name Is Asher Lev, Laurel and Hardy and Cabaret. Zager returned to Milwaukee after three years as the Co-Head of Voice and Dialects and the Company Coach at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Regionally, she has worked at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, Drury Lane Water Tower, Apple Tree Theatre, Drury Lane Theatre & Conference Center, Utah Shakespeare Festival and Milwaukee Chamber Theatre. She earned her Master’s Degrees at Central School of Speech & Drama (London) and Northwestern. Zager is married to James Zager, the Head of the Theatre Program at Carroll University.

Melissa Von Swol, (Stage Manager) returns to The Rep this season after stage managing I Left My Heart: A Salute to the Music of Tony Bennett. She has previously worked with First Stage Children’s Theater, Skylight Music Theatre, and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. She earned a BA in Theatre Arts from the University of Wisconsin – Parkside and her MFA in Stage Management from the University of Alabama. Von Swol is a proud member of Actors’ Equity.

KEY BIOGRAPHIES

Bruce Arntson, (Playwright) is a composer, screenwriter, and actor based in Nashville, TN. He was raised in northern Minnesota near the farm town of Pelican Rapids. He studied piano at a young age and formed a rock band which played gigs throughout the Midwest including Minneapolis. In 1979, in his early 20s, he moved to Nashville to break into the music business and he led a series of bands applying his original blend of rock, R&B, and theatrical excess. His acting credits include: Ernest Goes to Jail (1990), Existo (1999), and the short-lived children’s show Hey Vern, It’s Ernest! (1988). He was writing for Country Music Television’s (CMT) Inside Fame program when he was inspired to write The Doyle & Debbie Show. In 2012 he was awarded the Equity Joseph Jefferson Award for Actor in a Musical for The Doyle & Debbie Show in Chicago.

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FACT SHEET

WHAT: The Doyle & Debbie Show

BY: Bruce Arntson

DIRECTED BY: JC Clementz

THEATER: Stackner Cabaret

DATES: September 5, 2014 – November 2, 2014

DESCRIPTION:

Called “hilarious, brilliant, and drop-dead funny” by the Chicago Tribune, The Doyle & Debbie Show finds a washed-up country star and his newest singing partner dusting off their microphones and resurrecting a familiar signature sound. Singing 16 original hits, including “Stock Car Love” and “Blue Stretch Pants,” this hilarious send-up of country music duos will have you doubled-over with laughter and roaring for an encore.

Milwaukee Repertory Theater is a nationally-recognized company that presents compelling dramas, powerful classics, award-winning contemporary works, full-scale musicals, housed in its three unique performance venues – the Quadracci Powerhouse, Stiemke Studio and Stackner Cabaret. The Rep also produces an annual production of A Christmas Carol at the beautiful and historic Pabst Theater. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Mark Clements and Managing Director Chad Bauman, The Rep is committed to creating plays that are meaningful and relevant to the society we live in – plays that are challenging, visceral and engage the community through the issues they explore, demonstrating how a theater deeply rooted in its locality can also enjoy a richly influential and resonant national voice.